Bounce flash photography - be bold!

With on-camera bounce flash photography, there is the initial idea that you need a white wall or ceiling to bounce off. With these examples from an engagement photo session of DaWeon and Toban, I want to show that it is entirely possible to really enhance the available light on location, with some unexpected bounce flash.
For those who are just joining us now, here is a tutorial on bounce flash. We're just expanding here on that article. The essential idea from that tutorial - you bounce flash into the direction you want the light to come from. Read more inside...

Bounce flash vs. Available light vs. Using the videographer's light

The expressive trumpet player in the band at a wedding - a simple portrait of this musician, sweetened with some bounce flash. The light on his face, is by now perhaps predictably, on-camera bounce flash with the black foamie thing. Looking at the light pattern on his face, you'll see there was no direct flash of any kind.
camera settings: 1/60 @ f2.8 @ 2000 ISO // TTL flash
Nikon D3; Nikon 70-200mm f2.8 AF-S VR II; Nikon SB-910 Speedlight
In comparison, here are a few other images. One with no flash, Read more inside...

Bounce flash photography technique - mimicking window light

The classic shot - a beautiful bride lit by soft window light.
That's a yes on the beautiful bride - but it's a solid no on the window light.
What you see there is on-camera flash. (Which most likely won't be a surprise to regular readers of the Tangents blog.)
This image is from a wedding this past weekend, and it makes a great example of how light, choice of lens, composition, angle and technique come together to make an image work. With a bit of post-processing added finally for that vintage Read more inside...

On-camera bounce flash for natural looking light

This photo of Precious, a model at a photography workshop, was taken during part of the practical session where emphasis was placed on getting soft directional light from an on-camera speedlight. The trick here is to absolutely have no hint of light coming from the camera's view-point. To do this, I once again used the Black Foamie Thing to control the light from my on-camera speedlight, shielding the light from the flash. I pointed my speedlight 90' to my left, so that the light reflected back towards our model from that Read more inside...

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Recent Comments

Neil vN: I would say this wedding cost in the region of $300,000 and up. Somewhere there. When I posted this video...

Todd: Speechless! Superb timelapse work! I’ve clicked and searched through every single educational link in this...

Megan Kuethen: WOW, this is AMAZING!!!! I seriously can’t believe how much work went into creating that space....

Jon Lemon: Daaaang, that’s a massive setup. Great way to show off all that effort!